Side Effect
by everybreatheverymove
Summary: There are five stages of grief. One day, they'll reach acceptance. What happens when Jackson and April return home after childbirth and saying goodbye. Set after 11x11. Oneshot.


**So, this was actually meant to be done before the lastest episode, but I had some more important stuff to do so it had to be delayed. However, after that little tidbit of information we got, I think this worked out alright and makes some sense. At least, to me, it does. And I'm using it as headcanon until proven otherwise. Anyway, let me know what you think, good or bad, and enjoy hopefully! :)**

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"What do you need?"

April hasn't really spoken much, held a proper conversation with him, for the past few hours.

He isn't complaining, though. He understands it, and why, and her. He gets that she doesn't feel very communicative right now. He understands that she doesn't want to talk about cutting people open and the death that sometimes follows.

He knows her, knows how she works, how she thinks, is.

Jackson watches as she paces the room, for probably the fifth time that evening.

It's only been four hours since the moment, since the unfortunate fate of their token of love, and she has been in a trance since they got back from the hospital.

It's hard, for him, as it is, so he doesn't even want to begin to imagine what hurt she must be feeling. She was the one to truly suffer in all of this, the one to make the decision, to handle the dealt cards. He only assisted, offered comfort and support the only way he knew how.

She was hurting, pained, uneasy to talk to.

"I'm fine, Jackson." She folds up the blanket thrown over the back of their couch neatly, tucks the corners under the flaps securely before she rests it back over the sofa.

April walks back around into the kitchen then, ignoring his stare from across the counter.

She grabs a glass from the side, flicks the tap to run cold water into a stream to fill her glass.

"April-" Jackson starts, makes a move to reach a hand across the counter, tries to capture her gaze when she shoots a look towards the nursery, that room they aren't going to mention for the time being.

She doesn't flinch, only bats long eyelashes and licks her lips, spins around to walk away.

"I'm going for a shower."

Wash away the hurt, the pain, the guilt that she feels for going against God's wishes.

But, maybe, this is what was supposed to happen?

Maybe this is redemption, forgiveness.

Maybe this is God's way of forgiving her for betraying Him? Maybe this is what she gets for breaking hearts and being selfish and committing sins without religious consent.

She knows that she, they, made the right decision.

What kind of life would that have been for their little one? A lifetime full of injury, suffering, cruel torture, and all because she would have believed in her faith just a little bit too much.

She knows that it was the right decision, that forcing a life to end before it truly begins was much better than spending months, years full of heartache.

She walks by the nursery without a second glance, ignores the chill that runs up her spin when she remembers the moments already passed in there, the moments still waiting to be passed.

"April-" He tries again, blinking repeatedly as she continue to pass him by, to ignore reality the one way she knows how.

"I'm fine." She sighs, slides her glass of water across the bathroom counter before she turns to face the door, peeks her head past it to find him. "You don't need to worry, Jackson."

"I can't not." He replies honestly, brows raised as he approaches her, hands in his jeans' pockets. He stops in front of the doorway, lifts a hand to rest against the wood. "Tell me you're going to be alright, right now, and I'll leave you alone."

He's pushing her, forcing it out of her, trying to reach her level of understanding.

"I'm fine." She retorts, looks away from him and down at her glass.

She wants a shower, wants to ignore this and that and wash away her pain. She wants to start new, pretend whatever happened hasn't actually just happened.

"That's not what I asked." He whispers, voice low and almost husky enough to get her back to how this all started. He blinks, swallows a breath, watches her gaze flicker back and forth between his eyes and lips.

April takes a deep breath, drops her focus down onto his belt, admires the metal, wonders how it would feel against her skin. "How are you?"

She looks up as she waits for his reply, lets her gaze drift over his entire face.

He's tired, worn out, torn, probably not as much as she is but he's hurting just the same amount.

"I'm going to be alright." It sounds abrupt, a little cruel given the circumstances.

What, he's going to be alright, and forget about the whole thing?

He's going to ignore the fact that she gave birth to his little boy and had to say goodbye to him within the course of an hour?

He's going to pretend it never happened, pretend he didn't hold her as she held his love, their little sign of love?

He's a fighter, the kind that doesn't, won't, bare his soul to just anybody.

But she's his wife, his one, the love of his goddamn life so she hopes he at least has some emotion to share.

"You're fine with this?" She nods to herself as she asks the question, takes a step closer to him, "You're going to be alright? We said goodbye to our baby after only minutes of meeting him, not even days, and you're just, what, normal? Are you alright, Jackson? Are you really? Or are you just worrying about me so I don't have to worry about you?"

He sighs, drops his head to stare at the floor, inhales a sharp breath with closed eyes.

"I'm coping." Jackson tells her simply, "I'm managing, and I'm worried that you aren't. I'm worried that you're downplaying your pain. I don't know how hard that was for you, April, but it can't-"

"You're right, you don't know! You can't possibly know what that felt like!" She shakes her head, holds back a flood of angered tears, "It was supposed to be perfect! It was- He was supposed to be here, Jackson."

Her nostrils flare as she talks, lets all of her emotions come pouring out, unable to stop her neck from reddening and her skin from shivering.

She stops, moves, holds herself steady against the doorframe, against herself.

"He was supposed to be handed to us, and we would fawn over him like he was he greatest gift we ever got! It was going to be perfect! We had it planned, Jackson! You built rocking chairs, and I already bought a freaking baby-grow!"

She pauses, takes such a breath that her neck hurts, feels the air penetrate her lungs, "But it didn't happen that way, did it? I had, we had, to leave him because he left us. He was there, and-"

She waves a hand about, leans, slouches against the doorframe after a second, allows her eyes to drift close.

"He was here, he was there, and now-" She takes a breath, shifts her gaze up to meet his sorrowful one, "Now he's not. And we are. And I don't know what to do." She shivers, folds her arms over her chest protectively when her skin erupts in goosebumps, as though the cold is death and she doesn't wanna be hurt again. "Do you?"

Jackson stares ahead at her, can't help but let his brows knit, his throat clear as he shifts from one foot onto the other. "No." His voice is low, quiet like it is when he's nervous, when he's uncomfortable. He swallows a deep breath, lets his Adam's apple bob and show her his interior pain, "I don't, April. I don't know how."

His hands slip from his pockets then, reaching out to cup the sides of her face, thumbs against cheeks and dark fingers against pale skin. He shakes his head, offers his best apologetic smile.

Whatever he's feeling, going through, is surely nothing in comparison to what she is having to hold right now.

But he doesn't want her to shut down, and lock him out, and pretend as though everything can go back to how it was several days ago. It won't, she can't, and he isn't going to let it.

"I don't know what to do, April. Just... Tell me what you need. Okay? Because whatever you need," His brows raise, eyes widen as he convinces her of his words, "I will give to you. And whatever you want, you can have. Alright? Just tell me. Tell me something. Give me something to go off here. But just- don't,"

He shifts, grimaces slightly as he drops his focus onto her hands, onto her wedding band. He removes one hand from her face, runs it over his own agitatedly.

"Don't shut me out. Okay?" He licks his lips, trails his eyes over her body and onto her face again, lets the slightest hint of a smile work its way onto his lips, "I'm as lost as you are, right now."

She doesn't do much after that, only folds into him, collapses her smaller body into his larger one, arms wrapping around his torso for comfort. It's calm, and tight, and he's more than used to letting her use him as a standing pillow.

"We're going to be okay, right?" She murmurs against his sweater, voice almost silent and not above a whisper. She weeps, presses her further into his chest comfortably when he smoothes a hand over the back of her hair, threads long fingers through long red curls.

"I hope so."

He's not one for hoping but it's not the first time that day he's willing to change his ways a little, offer a little help in believing rather than full on skepticism.

He prayed, something he's still stunned by, something she's never know about. And he's still not sure how he feels about it.

Did it bring him comfort, did it ease April's pain? Maybe a little bit.

Did it convince him that there was a higher power at work up there with a hidden agenda and some kind of magical ability to free the world of hurt? No. Not in the slightest.

A child still suffered, a mother's heart still broke, and a father had to be the one to keep it together.

The father has to be the one to save face whenever he's vulnerable, to only let his guard down in the safety net of his own home and his wife's arms. The father has to be the man, the shoulder, the safety net itself. The father has to be the husband to his wife, has to put her needs before his own.

The father has to be the man he never knew, never had. The father has to be the example. The father has to be him.

"Can you?" She pulls her head away from his chest, tilts it over towards the shower he hadn't noticed had been running all the while.

Her eyes are red, her lips dry, and her face looks so fragile that he wants nothing more than to kiss her pain away. "Yeah." Jackson nods, whispers low and husky, allows her to move her hands to the waistband of his jeans.

She pulls the material down his legs, somehow helping him remove her blouse in the process. It falls open, and he slides it down her arms carefully, not wanting the cloth to burn her anymore than she already has today.

April drops it onto the tiled floor before she slips her own jeans down her legs, kicks them off with a deep breath and watching as he tugs his dark sweater over his head, pulls the t-shirt underneath off at the same time.

Her hands fly toward him then, resting against his toned chest, feeling his own drop to her backside, slip down the hem of her panties.

She avoids looking at her stomach, reminded of what was once there and what was no longer, and her skin bruises itself, erupts in goosebumps at the way he stares down at her.

His eyes dance over her skin, ignore the way she shakes slightly almost awkwardly beneath his gaze. She's kind of embarrassed, kind of unsure, a little uneasy right now.

Jackson keeps a hand down the back of her underwear for moment, palm to her bare skin as the other softens the side of her face again, leaning his forehead against hers in reassurance as he whispers, "Hey, look at me."

She glances up then, hazel eyes darker than they usually are, lips chapped and bruised from a lack of contact.

She swallows a sharp breath, shaky and cold as though the warm air between them isn't heating her body.

Her lashes flutter, teeth biting into her bottom lip as she waits for him to continue speaking, as she waits for his eyes to burn holes through her body just a little bit more.

"You're gorgeous, okay?" He nods once against her, unknowingly lets his eyes brighten with a small smile, "And this, I love this." His right hand stays along her face, his thumb tracing her lip softly. His left hand smoothes around her waist, digs his fingertips into her skin like he'd melt into snow and he runs the tip of his thumb along her stomach, "I love you."

She's still freshly changed, far from being at peace and even further away from complete healing.

Her body doesn't look that different from how it did a few hours ago, but it's what's going on inside that she can't stand the thought of.

There was growth, life, love, something in there, in her, and now it's gone and there's no valid explanation as to why and she doesn't want to think about it, doesn't want to admit that she looks the same but doesn't feel it.

She doesn't tell him this. Perhaps he thinks she's uncomfortable with a still swollen belly holding air instead of fragile bones. Maybe he thinks she's insecure now, that her appearance in the mirror reflects what's really going on inside.

She won't correct him, though, because she knows that he means well and that he's only trying to understand her the best he can.

So, she nods, silently agrees with him, lets him hold her, expose her, lead her beneath a stream of boiling water as he joins her. When he reaches for the tap to turn the heat to warmth, she stops him.

Fingers pressing against the side of his wrist, she closes her eyes and tilts her head back, feels the hot sting of water pour down her body, scraping her shoulders and neck like nails down a chalkboard.

It burns, the way she wants it too and not the kind of way that hurts. It scratches, itches, makes seemingly cold shivers run up and down her spine as though she's trembling from frost and not exhaustion.

He brings her in closer, wraps protective arms around her body and tightens her against his frame. She's still looking up, still refusing to let her gaze meet his, now focused solely on the drops of water running down her elbow.

If it hadn't of been him, if it hadn't of been them together, this probably wouldn't have happened. Genes work a little like the speckles of water dripping between their bodies. One move, one alteration, and everything changes.

It's not his fault, she knows that. At least, not his entirely. It's the both of them, though 'fault' is probably a strong word to use in such a circumstance.

It's their problem, their tragedy, their consequence for being a little too greedy at the romance table. She'll shoulder the burden as much as he will, is already doing, because it's not fair that he should have to support her and fight his own demons in his own space.

They're a pair, a team, they work together. One can't live without the other, one can't function to their highest capacity unless the other is around.

She'll let him grieve the way she is doing now, but it might take her a little while to get to that place, where she can brush her feelings aside for a few minutes and listen to his heart break. It's selfish, rightfully so, but she can't do anything else.

April finally leans her head against his shoulder then, using his support and strength, finding herself unable to wrap her arms around him the way he is doing to her.

This isn't about intimacy, at least not the way it usually is when they're alone, in the shower, in one of many safe spaces.

It's about comfort, fragility. It's about the kind of intimacy that you can only ever share with one person because nobody else will understand.

She's weak, physically drained and angry at the way her arms collapse, shoulders slouching carelessly as though she's carrying heavy weight, as though she can't do it anymore.

She feels as though she'd been lugging a tree around, as though the weight of her burden, of her tragedy, was really worth tons. It wasn't, never had been, and her arms hadn't been holding anything long enough for her to sustain actual pain.

It's a side effect, her brain telling her to let it all go and cry, her body telling her that it's had enough trauma for one day.

The redhead moans softly against his dark skin when she feels his arms tightening around her waist, hands rubbing somewhat soothing patterns across the low of her back.

She breathes, heavily, unevenly, enough to make him pull his face away from the too of her head and find her gaze.

His green eyes are darker than usual, shaded into a hooded sea-foam colour she's not sure she even recognises.

Maybe that's a side effect too. The inability to distinguish facial features from the norm because, in the grand scheme of things, it isn't very important.

Jackson doesn't say anything, only keeps her there, tucked against him like he won't let any harm befall her.

He allows her to grieve the way he will in his own time, watches as she sobs, hiccups and pushes her face so far into his skin in need of closeness, trembling jaw leaving vibrations against his heart.

It hurts, strings, and he's no longer sure where his pain ends and her anguish begins. His arms melt into her naked flesh with the heat of the water, the sound of fallen drops along the bottom of the shower burning through his memory.

They don't talk, they don't need to. They'll do it with time, they'll heal eventually.

Sometime later, he's managed to pull her out of the shower, convince her through gentle words that pale skin turning bright red won't do her any favours.

He dresses her the way she needs to be covered, with long pyjama sweats and a t-shirt to cover her stomach.

She takes over turning down the bed sheets while he gets himself changed, locks their apartment from all harm and switches off every single light.

He spends a minute or so in front of the nursery, eyes tracing the side of the crib he'd had to help her mother ship, deliver and build. The old yellow colour of it seems to have faded, though it may just be dark talking, and his eyes may be deceiving him. Isn't everything going to be a little bit darker for awhile, anyway?

He closes the door, keeps his gaze off of the rocking chair, pretends it's not there, pretends he never build it in the first place. Maybe that's the best way of going about things? Maybe that's what he needs?

Denial won't bring him comfort but at least it will numb the ache inside his chest.

Stepping back into their bedroom, Jackson closes the door behind him before he rubs a hand over his face, approaches his half of the bed slowly.

There's no use in shutting a door to their own room, their own place, but it closes out memories, shuts down the world outside. This is about them, and they're going to deal with it together.

He slips into his side carefully, having noticed her calm and tired trance.

She wasn't asleep, her eyes were still wide open, but her breathing was in steady paces and her nostrils were flared, as though she was deep in thought and unwilling to budge.

His pillow shifts, he changes position a couple of times before finding his place beside her, his hand reaching back to switch off his lamp before he shuffles closer but retains his distance.

She doesn't need, doesn't want, anymore hugging, anymore consoling. She needs a little space, a little room to breath, no matter how much it pains him to let her go it alone for as long as she needs.

Neither one of them sleeps at first. His brain won't shut of, and she won't let hers.

She keeps thinking, remembering the pain, the push, the feel of a baby in her arms and the ache of him leaving her embrace.

She tries to hold it in until she knows her husband's asleep. Mainly because she doesn't want to drag him into her own personal mess, her own grief. They have to do this together but individually, keep a safe distance from the other but never leave their side.

"Hey."

It's only when she hears his one word, when she feels an arm slowly curl around her waist to grasp her hand that she realises she'd been crying.

She was facing away, her back sore and legs tired and body an absolute nightmare, but he'd felt her shiver, noticed the goosebumps that had started to dance up her arms as she feigned sleep.

Her eyes are slightly red, her lips dry and the way she sniffled and cleared her throat every ten seconds didn't escape him.

He pulls her closer against her will because, deep down, he knows her, knows that she really needs something she's too proud to ask for. She's his wife, the mother of his would-be almost-was kind-of-is child. She's his.

He understands her, understands what she needs before she even has to think it.

His right hand covers hers against the mattress, threading his fingers through her own as she shuffles herself closer to him, moves a little backwards and he a little forwards.

April takes a deep breath, lets her tongue dampen her lips as she finally lets her eyes drift close, safe at the contact of his body and protected by his hold on her heart. "Thank you."

She whispers quietly, pushes the side of her face further into her pillow to encourage him to drop his chin onto her shoulder, stubble against her skin as he breathes out, warm yet calm air shaking her nerves.

There are five stages of grief. One day, they'll reach acceptance.


End file.
